Anti-Globalism writes: ""We predicted there would be some degree of spillover from the mortgage meltdown," said Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com. "But the credit line reductions by big credit card companies in the last six months have been fairly unprecedented."

In the second quarter, credit giant MasterCard reported that the gross dollar volume, or GDV, of credit charges processed in the United States rose just 0.7 percent from 2007, while the GDV of debit charges rose 15.8 percent. The huge retailer Target in late August said that in the second quarter, for the first time in memory, the percentage of sales charged to credit cards fell, while the proportion of purchases made with debit cards rose. That's partially by design, since the company has undertaken an "aggressive reduction of credit lines and significant tightening of all aspects of our underwriting.""Link to Original Source

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